It’s been over three years since I sat both 70-697 and 70-398, so I’m not in a good position to compare what I thought of those exams in comparison to MD-101, except to say that the new exam feels more relevant to me, in terms of things that are included, as well as those that aren’t included. That doesn’t mean that the exam only covers things I personally care about, that’s not what I would expect. I always thought that 70-398 was a bit of a weird exam, especially considering that it was referred to as the EMS exam during development, but it had some core Windows 10 domain objectives as well, which made it strange for people not approaching the exam with Windows support technician type skills.

If you’re anything like me, preparation for the MD-100 exam was a great deal of revisiting topics that you’ve been looking at over the years, and a good reminder of some of the core functionality that Windows includes that may not really think about on a day to day basis. With MD-101, it was a bit different in that it was making sure that any of the changes in technologies I do work with on a more regular basis had major changes added that I wasn’t aware of, which is pretty easy these days. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer to use docs.microsoft.com while preparing to make sure I’m not just preparing for the exam, but also expanding knowledge that could be immediately beneficial.

I’ve had to make some assumptions about the specifics of some of the requirements because they could be interpreted in multiple ways. If you’ve got some other good docs.microsoft.com articles that you think I’ve missed, or if you’ve got some additional suggestions, let me know and I’ll include them in the refresh once the exam is out of beta.

Hi Dano – not at this stage,, I made a couple of small adjustments already when I found some better matches, but I’ll do some bigger changes in a few weeks once the exam goes live and we potentially see some wording changes in the exam page.

One of the problems with keeping older exams alive is that the product skills and focus change over time, and the 70-697 exam was released over 3 years ago. Sometimes it’s better to do a reset with a new exam, new objectives and new expectations because some of the concepts and technologies in the old exam don’t apply any more.

There’s no harm in doing the retiring exams, but I would be more focused on the newer certifications because they will be valid for longer and cover more current technologies. If you are already partway down the path of achieving another certification that you want, it’s not bad to get it before it becomes unavailable.